


Even for an hour

by silvercolour



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Feelings, Fluff, Jon is a night spirit and Martin is a day spirit and the can only meet at twilight, Kissing, M/M, Reunions, Spirit AU, Yearning, no beta only kayaking, which causes exactly as much yearning as you’d think, which is related to the yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29945250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercolour/pseuds/silvercolour
Summary: When you can only see the one you love during twilight, and must be separated from them uring both the day and the night, the hours seem to go so very slow.In which Martin is a spirit of the sun, and Jon of the night sky, and every twilight they meet again, and part ways again.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79
Collections: Silver's tma fantasy AUs





	Even for an hour

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 2 of the tma fantasy week, for the prompt “twilight”! You can find my other fills for this week, as well as some other fantasy AUs (vampire and fae so far) I’ve wriiten in the collection this fic is also a part of!
> 
> Title from the poem “A day is too long” by Tribhuvan Mendiratta:  
>  _[...]  
>  Don't leave me, even for an hour   
> the smoke that roams   
> looking for a home will drift   
> into me, choking my lost heart. _
> 
> _may your eyelids never flutter  
>  Into the empty distance.   
> moment you'll have gone so far   
> I'll wander hazily over the earth,_

Martin watches the Sun sink slowly, ever so slowly, towards the horizon. How he hates summer. The interminable hours of daylight that keep him away, keep him waiting, missing, and remembering. He knows Jon feels the same about winter, when Martin’s days are short, and Jon’s nights endlessly long and dark. It is inevitable, and it will pass. Eventually. But knowing that, having lived that for these long years since their first meeting doesn’t make the waiting easier, nor time pass any faster.

They had agreed to meet here this morning, in the last ephemeral moments of dawn when the night finally loses its grip on the sky, and the day breaks. Jon had overheard a few humans talking about a party happening on this beach tonight. Something Jon called a “proper party”, meaning no unfathomable thumping music, but actual dancing. He’d asked without actually asking, and Martin had told him he would wait here for Jon before Jon even finished talking.

I’a a wedding celebration, apparently. Martin has been watching them all day, though no humans ever see him. No one has ever seen him, except Jon. There were others like them, even the spirits aren’t unique, but they were few in number. And what with each of them having their own domain? It required quite a bit of luck, or some very good timing for two spirits to meet. Or they simply needed to arrange a meeting place, and show up on time.

Martin glanced at the Sun. Still there, still sinking, not quite at the horizon yet. But definitely closer now.

Martin tried to distract himself by watching the human’s wedding party as drinks were poured and the band started tuning their instruments. In fairness, he couldn’t quite tell if the two adorable elder ladies were getting married, or possibly renewing their vows. Human language is so fleeting, so sound filled and wondrous that Martin always struggles paying attention, instead just listening to the sounds like one might to a soft song in a new language.

What the spirits speak is perhaps more, perhaps less than a language. Certainly it doesn’t produce the varied sounds that human language creates, but it has a music all it’s own. And Jon’s words most of all...

Perhaps the possible-wedding was not quite as successful a distraction as Martin hoped. Glancing again at the Sun, he could see she was almost touching the Ocean now. Martin’s heart leaps inside his chest: Jon should be here soon.

Staring into the light, willing it to go faster, faster– but not too fast, or it would eat away his time with Jon. He hates it, sometimes. This forced separation, this eternal waiting game they play. Jon says there’s nothing to be done for it, they cannot change what they are, in the same way the Night cannot become Day. They can only ever replace the other, touching at the edges. And in those edges Martin met Jon. In those edges he fell in love with that sharp, clever, brilliant man. And only in those small bits of overlap can they meet each other.

Finally,  _ finally _ , the moment Martin has been waiting for all day: the Sun has reached her horizon bed; it is dusk. As the band strikes up the first song behind him, a gentle hand lands on his shoulder. Martin spins around and there, waiting for him, is Jon, who looks more radiant in this moment than the sun herself.

“How was your day?” Jon asks the question with a smile, as though they do not ask this every evening, and every morning. The question remains, even though the answer varies sometimes. Today, Martin’s answer is as heart-felt as the vows of the two brides now stepping onto the dancefloor behind him for their first dance: “It was way too long.” He takes Jon’s hand from his shoulder, twines their fingers together, and wishes he need never let go. He will have to, one way or another, but not right now, and he plants a kiss on the back of Jon’s hand. Jon’s blush is beautiful, and adorable and Martin will never understand why he blushes still. No one could stop them except the inevitable passing of time. Except the same passing of time will reunite them as well, an endless cycle of meetings and farewells, and–

Jon tugs at their hands, still entwined, and pulls Martin out of his thoughts: “It really was a long day, huh?” A smile that is only half a smile stretches across Jon’s lips. He puts on a brave face, a cool facade, but Martin knows feels the same way. The other half of that smile is twisting into sadness, and Martin can’t have that. They’re here to enjoy the party, while they can. They can be sad another dusk, another dawn.

Martin leans close, and presses a feather-light kiss to the not quite smiling corner of Jon’s mouth. He retreats only far enough to watch the way Jon’s eyes light up at that, and even as he thinks he could stare into those eyes forever, Jon reaches up his other hand and pulls Martin back, crashing their lips together with a hunger Martin knows he wouldn’t dare voice. 

Martin once lamented out loud the fact that they still need to breathe, despite their less-than-corporeal forms. Jon had looked at him askance, and talked for half an hour at least about the importance, as well as the significance of breathing, and why even as spirits there were certain laws that could not be broken. Then Martin had kissed him breathless, and after Jon finally caught his breath he’d blushed a magnificent shade of sunset-red when he admitted that Martin made a good argument.

This kiss isn’t quite breathless, although Martin can taste the hunger of it as Jon licks into his mouth and presses himself close and closer. They both know they have other things to be doing, however, and Martin separates them, even as Jon whines a small protest. Breathing heavy, breaths mingling in the short distance between them, Martin asks the question he’s been waiting to ask all day: “May I have this dance?”

Behind them the wedding band is playing something that may or may not be a quickstep, but that hardly matters as they join hands, and step close together. Closer, perhaps, than is practical, but lack of full corporeality has some advantages. 

They dance, around the humans, and around the music, to a song all their own. If the music in the air is too fast for the dance they flow through, they skip some beats. If the music is too slow, they use the beat of their hearts to guide them, ever closer, forever together. While the song lasts, they think of nothing else but the song, and each other, until eventually Jon looks over Martin’s shoulder to see the Sun has almost left them.

Jon slows, and Martin does too, but only reluctantly. They’ve danced this metaphorical dance too often for both of their tastes, and will dance it again many more times. But the alternative is not knowing, and not seeing Maritn again. So they dance this conversation as well.

“Shall I see you at dawn?”

“Oh Jon,” Martin plants a kiss on Jon’s lips, and adds a softer kiss to his forehead as well. “You know I’ll be here.”

A small smile grows on Martin’s face, even as he begins to fade with the last dying rays of sunlight: “Will you save me a dance?”

And Jon can only smile at that, even as his heart breaks the way it always does when dusk fades into true Night: “For you? Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I just wanted to write jmart dancing together but it accidentally became yearning...
> 
> Leave a comment and let me know what you think, I absolutely love hearing from you guys!


End file.
